Slitherine

Hello, here is my first impressions report.

First things first:
* Launcher looks professional
* The Intro is OK, not too inspired. The launch screen is impressive and the faction choice reminds me positively of the Civ clone "Alpha Centauri"
* Very beautiful graphics and sleek UI
* UI does not only look good but is also very responsive and the shortcuts make sense
* Nice background music and good preset for balance between UI/FX/music

Movement is easy to understand, how combat is calculated is displayed nicely. The city interface is a bit like Civilization V but better, assigning workers in form of little humans to task is easy to understand and very effective.
Research felt a bit underwhelming, as there is no way to see exactly what you will get. This might be fun for the first time, but after that you know it and I bet it will get rather boring and awkward not to have a way to see what exactly you get for your research. Later I noticed a difference in research trees between factions.

All in all, it felt very good and I made good progress exploring and I really liked it!

At the end of the first 30 minutes I had more units to manage and ran into first enemy AIs besides alien wildlife. BIG problems, as I lost some units to a Leviathan and other alien beasts and once even a city and didn't get a proper report.

The reports floating up to the right edge of the screen are nice, but all action takes place at the same time. This might be good and the only way for multiplayer, but is there no way to replay the enemy turn and zoom from attacked unit/hotstpot to another? This would make it way easier for me to track what's going on.

I am making good progress after restarting and now guard my territory more carefully and place cities on better spots, making great progress so far.

Will write some more thoughts when I have progressed further, this is not really "first impressions". But so far I can say they were good enough for me to continue playing and I will recommend the game definitely.

I just produced the first "Long Tom" artillery tanks - and even more useful IMO! - Barracuda watercrafts with Long Toms. Speed 3, range 2 -> great battleships and ideal for shore bombardment. The alien beasts like Galeths no longer threaten me, a Leviathan or Aspioch is still a force to be reckoned with.

I am about to attack the blue Imperial Faction. I researched orbital bombardements and their cities and troops are all in a very tiny area with access to the ocean. I guess they are toast soon. The red Solar Dynasty has multiple Avenger Tanks and a few more cities than me. I expect conflict with them.

The other Factions are on another continent that seems way better for settlement than my starting cold arctic tundra south pole region.

Verdict: Seems I have entered a new phase, I am very excited to continue playing. I still like how resources are managed. Producing wealth makes sense, it allows old cities to produce cash for new ones to help kickstart them. The Workshop system and how unit upgrades work is great!

Some criticism: The fast Barracudas make the "ruins" popup already pop up so fast that you don't see them moving there anymore. Maybe they should be shown moving there and a few split seconds later this should pop up. It's minor but it would be good to keep track.

Besides that, "Conquest: Divide and Conquer" already had a turn video replay feature and this would for sure be VERY useful for Pandora when a lot of things happen at once to better keep track.

Turn ~190 Update.

After researching Flight and building the first few Aircrafts, my Mechs supported by Long Tom Artillery Tanks obliterated the blue Imperial Faction within 5-6 turns. They had only 3 cities in a shitty polar environment, being deprived of terrain by me and the red Solar Dynasty.

Observation 1: Artillery seems to rule supreme. Splash damage killed entire stacks of troopers, a massive advantage over even the strongest Mech as it can only kill them one by one.
Perhaps too good?

Observation 2: I built several Recon and Orbital Strike facilities. But it seems there is a hard limit of THREE strikes and spy operations, no matter how many you have built? I also think orbital strikes would be nice to have a special animation, like a rock/meteorite or railgun slug falling down from the sky.

I then went on to destroy the Solar Dynasty. Again the bulk of enemy troops got massacred by my artillery, but I was quite superior in quality and numbers to them anyways. I am now going to take on the other of two major continents where the remaining factions are located. I am in the "blue" period of the tech tree.

Observation 3: Only Infantry seems to be able to use drop-pods. I am not sure if the infantry must be "Colonial Trooper" or already "Assault Trooper", as both can be set up with exactly the same gear and just look differently so far.

The game was very fun during this phase. I especially like that producing wealth allows to buy stuff for weaker cities easily, which was not nearly as readily possible in CIV 5 e.g..
I am worried that this already was it and that I am already in the mop-up phase. The AI isn't strong and I get present over present from the enemy Factions and simply felt way more threatened by native wildlife during the early phase, by now I am so damn save that I really feel cocksure that I can do this easily without fear of much enemy resistance.